All about Surgery

Oh, today makes 10 months post op. Hyster/oophor/salipingo – ectomy. It all had to go. The pain had been steadily increasing from 2013 on, each month. Then suddenly, at the end of 2016, I felt like I was walking with a knife swinging into my lower left side, every time I took a step. I worked a rather physical job, and by February, I was in tears some days. It was invisible, so no one had any sympathy for me. Until I found a young doctor who is a woman who listened to me. While the ultrasounds only showed a little cystic activity, I was scared by the pain. She believed me, and she offered the surgery to me rather quickly in the diagnostic process. It was a no brainer for me, as I was ready to cut into myself and scoop it all out.

When she got in there, it was a much bigger mess than she expected. One ovary was attached and tugging on my ureter. The special internal ultrasounds were worthless. (I’m still mad I had to pay for those.) The scarring and the endometriosis was extensive, too. She said I must have had it all my life. Endo is sneaky as fuck, apparently. Some can feel it with just a little scarring, and some of us build up with it for years without knowing until it nearly takes out a kidney, in my case. She said it was the 2nd most difficult surgery she has ever had.

My recovery was easy. There was no damage to the ureter, and I went into surgical menopause after 3 weeks. I am currently taking 1 mg of oral estradiol. It keeps me from crying over stupid commercials and sweating/freezing/burning up in quick rotation. It was six weeks, though. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that since they can’t see it, you must be fine and dandy. Even with an easy recovery, expect 6 weeks of doing nothing. Even if your ex’s mom has a fit about you not doing everything after only 3 goddamned days, when you had made arrangements and had agreements that you’d need a lot of help and support for 6 weeks. This is not like recovering from birth. Especially with all the ablation and skeletonizing that happened on top of removing organs and then the kidney stent for 3 weeks to ensure any nicks in my ureter healed up. That was the worst of it – the stent. Grr. I hope I never have one again.

I’m not even a year post op and I feel like I did when I was in my 20s, as far as most physical aspects. Of course, I’m not, and my body is quick to remind me that it’s over its hill, when I do too much. I wish I had done it about 5 years ago. This has made one improvement to my life that thwarts my unshakable belief that I’m living a punishment life.